A Texas Treasure, 'Smitty' to Mosey Down Happy Trails.

Lobbyist for the Small Fry Hangs It Up.  By Ross Ramsey, Texas Tribune.

Tom “Smitty” Smith, a colorful lobbyist and liberal activist who turned Public Citizen Texas into a strong voice on environmental, utility, consumer and ethics issues, is hanging up his spurs after 31 years. “The thing that I learned time after time, story after story, is that people standing up does make a difference,” he says.
Read the full story at the Texas Tribune.

NY Times: Success of the Voter Fraud Myth

 
How does a lie come to be widely taken as the truth?

The answer is disturbingly simple: Repeat it over and over again. When faced with facts that contradict the lie, repeat it louder.

This, in a nutshell, is the story of claims of voting fraud in America — and particularly of voter impersonation fraud, the only kind that voter ID laws can possibly prevent.


Read the full editorial at the New York Times.
                                                                                                             (Emiliano Ponzi)

Paxton In Federal Court as Legal Woes Persist

Lawyers for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton will argue Friday morning in a Sherman courtroom that the federal civil fraud case against him should be dismissed, their latest effort to unwind the legal troubles that have dogged Paxton for more than a year.


Read the full story at Texas Tribune.

PAXTON NEWS: Paxton Took Cash From Company Under Investigation

From Paul Weber of the Associated Press:
Texas Attorney General Took Gift While Investigating Company.

Ross Ramsey: The Long and Winding Road to the Texas Ethics Commission

An analysis by Texas Tribune editor Ross Ramsey.

Paxton Uses "Gift Loophole" to Pay His Defense Team

Ken Paxton is using a loophole in the state anti-bribery laws to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay his criminal defense lawyers.

Read details from the Texas Tribune.

Paxton Criminal Appeal Rejected

The Dallas-based 5th Court of Appeals refused to toss the three felony-fraud indictments hanging over the head of Attorney General Ken Paxton.  The June 1 ruling was authored by Chief Justice Carolyn Wright.  Paxton's spokesperson said they are considering an appeal of the ruling before the state's highest criminal court.  Along with the state charges Paxton also faces federal fraud charges brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission.  The 5th Court of Appeals ruling is linked here.

TPJ Statement on Paxton Appeal Hearing

Statement of Andrew Wheat, TPJ Research Director:

"In asking Republican appeals judges to dismiss his criminal charges without a trial, Paxton invokes those recent precedents of Republican appellate judges dismissing corruption cases against their party’s leaders.  Let's hope these judges can exercise some judicial restraint and allow these felony charges to be tried in an open court."

Are Big Donors Abandoning Attorney General Ken Paxton?

Are Big Donors Abandoning Attorney General Ken Paxton?

 By TPJ's Andrew Wheat, Texas Observer, April 29, 2016

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s prodigious political fundraising plummeted after his criminal indictments in the summer of 2015. This could suggest that some donors are quietly rethinking their support of the embroiled attorney general, even as top GOP leaders have refrained from commenting on the plight of Paxton — a headliner at the Texas GOP Convention that opens in Dallas in May. (Read more).

Lobby Watch: Socialized Medicine for GOP Functionary

The top Paxton aide who secretly arranged to stay on the state payroll while running a Cruz PAC spent recent years fighting the twin evils of Obamacare and his own cancer.  It takes a special kind of person to simultaneously struggle to secure taxpayer-funded health benefits for himself while fighting to deny such benefits to millions of others.

Lobby Watch examines special boy Chip Roy.